NZL Sailing Team- Gold and Bronze in first 2014 World Cup Regatta

Both NZL Sailing Team crews competing at the opening regatta of the 2013-14 ISAF Sailing World Cup series for Olympic class sailors have medalled with Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie taking gold in the Women’s 470. Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox secured bronze in the Men’s 470.

The regatta, which ran over six days, was staged at the 2008 Olympic sailing venue off the eastern coast of China.

Olympic and World Champions Aleh and Powrie opened the regatta strongly clean sweeping the opening six races for the Women’s 470 class in which eight boats were sailing. Over the second half of the regatta Qingdao produced the light and tricky conditions its well known for and things didn’t go all the way of the kiwi pair with a strong challenge come from Chinese pair Hui Feng and Lizhu Huang over the final days.

But Aleh and Powrie held on and after a third place in the final double points medal race they secured the victory with four points to spare.

After racing Powrie was happy how things went, 'It was a bit stressful today. It was a bit more compact being on the smaller course and the girls in second had pretty good pace so we had our work cut out. We managed to keep close and come away with the win.

'We knew we could have at least one boat in between so we had a bit of room. We're really happy with the week and a nice way to finish off our year and we're stoked.'

Paul Snow-Hansen and San Willcox - 2014 ISAF World Cup, Qingdao October 2013

Yachting New Zealand

A second medal came for New Zealand in the Men’s 470 for Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox who took out the final medal race to win bronze in the 13-strong fleet racing in Qingdao. Argentina’s Lucas Calabrese and Juan de la Fuente won the regatta ahead of Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic of Croatia with the kiwis in third.

In the single-handed classes Thomas Saunders placed eighth overall in the Laser, Susannah Pyatt was sixth in the Laser Radial and Laura Lowther was 17th in the Laser Radial.